These adaptive fashion designers are making personal style more accessible

Writer and podcaster Ardra Shephard wasn’t born disabled. She started using mobility aids in her thirties: first a cane, then a rollator, sometimes a wheelchair. Shephard searched for disabled style icons for a little fashion inspo that would accommodate her mobility needs — but couldn’t find any. “I was frustrated and angry, actually, to discover that disabled people were being erased from the world of fashion and beauty,” she says.

Complicating this issue, change rooms are often not accessible, and shopping trips need to be planned around which subway stops have an elevator. The GTA is home to a few long-running adaptive fashion businesses, but many of their offerings skew more utilitarian than fashion-forward. While still uncommon, a few local designers have started adaptive fashion lines to create more inclusive — and chic — clothing for everyone, and that’s worth celebrating in our often-ableist society. “Adaptive fashion in Canada has come a long way,” Shephard says. “It’s exciting to see brand innovation, and that, year over year, we seem to be getting better about including disabled people in ad campaigns and in media in general.”

The reigning queen of the adaptive fashion scene is Izzy Camilleri, who is known worldwide for her Iz Inc. and IZ Adaptive labels. She got her start designing adaptive clothing in 2005, when she created pieces for Toronto Star reporter Barbara Turnbull, who was paralyzed from the neck down and used a wheelchair. Four years later, she launched IZ Adaptive to concentrate on producing pieces such as jackets that split into two halves for easier dressing.

“As a long-time fashion designer, I feel my talents are being better served creating clothing for people who have very limited choices,” Camilleri says. In the decade and a half since she launched her line, her work has been featured in the ROM as a noteworthy Canadian invention, and in 2022 she won both the Canadian Arts and Fashion Awards (CAFA) Fashion Impact Award and the Women’s Empowerment Awards Innovation Award.

All of Camilleri’s patterns are drafted for a seated frame instead of a standing frame, and she’s pioneered concepts including clothing that looks the same while seated, and a new type of pant that eliminates the centre-back seam, which often causes pressure sores for folks who sit for long periods of the day. “Fashion is an area that for a long time was not understanding that there was a problem to solve,” Camilleri says. “Adaptive clothing provides inclusion, sense of self, dignity and so much more to the individual that would need it.”

It’s also an area of opportunity. Adaptive fashion is starting to explode, with the international market predicted to grow by 15.24 per cent annually and reach $5.67 billion USD by 2028, according to a 2022 Stratview Research report. “Adaptive fashion is in its infancy so there’s so much room for all products, from clothing and footwear to undergarments and accessories,” Camilleri says. “Advancing in these areas is possible, but it’s not easy. We don’t have the manufacturing in Canada that’s cost-effective, and going offshore requires volume, which is challenging for young companies.”

One GTA brand that recently headed south is Aille Design. Founder Alexa Jovanovic collaborates with blind and visually impaired people to create pretty separates and gowns decorated with Braille; her brand recently shifted operations to Buffalo, New York, and frequently works with the American Foundation for the Blind. “The vast majority of our customers are from the U.S.,” says Jovanovic. “Being closer to them, and a larger market size overall, makes our goals of bringing disability representation and inclusion to mainstream fashion more attainable as we quickly scale the business.”

Known as The Braille Fashion Designer, Jovanovic has dressed blind “American Underdog” actor Hayden Zeller for the red carpet in a collared shirt adorned with his favourite lines from the movie in Braille, and made a collab collection with visually impaired rising jazz star Matthew Whitaker.

Jovanovic recently started offering bespoke Braille beadwork, and will never forget the first time a client was able to successfully read the beading on one of her research prototypes, a denim jacket. “The smile that appeared on her face, the joy that this experience brought her, and how proud she was of what we accomplished together is why being a fashion designer and creating adaptive clothing is so important to me,” Jovanovic says. “Fashion isn’t about sight. Fashion is about feeling, from the touch of a soft fabric to the rush of emotions and empowerment you experience when you put on your favourite outfit or read braille on clothing.”

She’d like to see this approach embraced much more widely. “Nothing would make me happier than to see mainstream fashion brands intentionally consult and co-design alongside a diverse group of individuals from the disability community to permanently bring disability representation and inclusion to all areas of the fashion industry.”

Another GTA brand fighting for fiercer adaptive fashion is June Adaptive. A decade ago, founder Wendy Wong’s aunt June got into a car accident and became quadriplegic. “It was a difficult time for my whole family,” Wong says. “I was told that my aunt could only wear clothing with specific closures that would allow caregivers to dress her. Despite having a fashion background, I couldn’t find clothes like this that also matched June’s fashion sense. This was an apparel need that the industry had failed to fill.”

Then, Wong’s mother-in-law developed multiple sclerosis. They started researching adaptive fashion options, but found only a few companies selling the clothes they needed. “I wanted to help bring adaptive fashion to the mainstream and make it more accessible,” Wong says. She launched June Adaptive in 2021; some of its most popular styles include chic zippered sneakers that skip the shoelaces, contemporary-looking grip socks to help stabilize folks with balance issues, and button-down shirts with magnets instead of buttons.

It’s so important for everyone to have access to clothing that works with their body, because it allows people to participate fully in all aspects of life, Wong says. Without adaptive fashion, individuals with disabilities or chronic health conditions may face barriers to accessing education, employment or social interaction, which can lead to feelings of exclusion and isolation. “Adaptive fashion is also great because it challenges the narrow societal definition of beauty and encourages a more diverse and inclusive understanding of fashion,” Wong adds. “It allows individuals to express themselves in a way that is empowering, joyful and fashion-forward!”

The adaptive fashion endgame would be for all fashion to be more accessible from the start. What if Tommy Hilfiger’s classic button-down shirts were on the same clothing rack or section of the website as their adaptive version? Couldn’t magnetic closure or button closure be a toggle on the same product page? Why don’t we see a large selection of adaptive garments and disabled models in the same runway show as a brand’s main collection? “Instead, we have disability-specific runway shows and adaptive clothing sections of websites and retail stores,” Jovanovic says. “Having these current options is a push in the right direction, but finding ways to better blend them and coexist creates a future with reduced stigma and othering.”

Shephard hopes more designers will start to consider universal design so that adaptive fashion doesn’t feel so niche: “Broadening the availability of fashion and beauty products that work for everyone, regardless of ability, leads to greater choice and affordability.”

Spring 2023 is bringing encouraging signs for a more accessible Canadian fashion landscape ahead. June Adaptive has a new campaign entitled “Life Easy,” created with an all-abilities cast and BIPOC product crew. Diversity and inclusion advocate Ben Barry is spearheading an exhibition, “Crippling Masculinity: Designing Fashion Utopias,” which showcases the fashion worldbuilding of disabled, deaf and mad-identified men and masculine people; it opens March 10 at Tangled Art + Disability.

Come May, the second season of Shephard’s show “Fashion Dis” debuts on AMI-tv. She created and hosts the program, which provides fashion makeovers to disabled folks. “I wanted to make a show that created space for disabled people to feel not just included but celebrated in the fashion and beauty world. I wanted to create stylish examples on a mainstream media platform where disabled viewers could see themselves,” Shephard says. “I wanted the non-disabled world to consider a different disability narrative than the tragic one that’s so pervasive.” In season two, for example, one participant is stoked to get a sleek, sporty rollator to replace the medical-looking, broken-down device she was using, and all participants get a high-fashion shoot to capture their new look.

“Fashion has the power to excite and delight disabled people for the same reasons it brings anyone joy,” Shephard says. “Everything we attach to ourselves is an opportunity to communicate who we are, how we see ourselves, how we want the world to see us. Disability is often the first thing people notice about me. I’ve had complete strangers ask if they can pray for me. Dressing with confidence and a bit of flair is a way for me to say, ‘I’ve got my s— together. You don’t need to feel sorry for me.’”

Briony Smith is a Toronto-based freelance contributing columnist for The Kit and the Star. She writes about fashion and culture. Follow her on Twitter: @brionycwsmith

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